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CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  For a minute, Magnus had almost fotten his three friends were there.

  He sat staring at the three Pokémon with a bnk expression, his thoughts rag as he tried to make sense of everything.

  Having watched the League battle, Magnus had noted several gring issues.

  First, these people knew nothing about type advantages, which meant they also missed out on using type-based moves.

  Instead, they relied solely on physical attributes to carry out attacks.

  Not that it didn’t make the battles iing—but really, if they had uood the potential these creatures possessed, the fusion of wizard magid Pokémon abilities would have taken the fights to a whole new level.

  As it was, the battles—while eaining—were nothing more than glorified bullfights. Pretty mundane.

  Ahing Magnus noticed was that both teams seemed to favantion.

  He had e to learn that they equated power with size, which was actually entirely wrong.

  In the anime, size—while intimidating—hardly made that much of a difference. He had seen Pikachu take down oppos ten times its size. It all came down to skill and strategy.

  But he couldn’t really bme them.

  With no knowledge of type matchups or moves, their best advantage became strategy, and yes… brute physical dominance.

  And then there was the st thing—the part that fused him the most.

  Pokémon Evolution.

  Magnus had bed through the beginner’s guide, and not once had he e across aion of it.

  At first, he hadn’t found it strange. Even in both the anime and the games, Pokémon evolved under special circumstances, often triggered by a mix of physical aional ditions.

  But judging by the fact that these Pokémon hadn’t even awakeheir innate abilities yet, evolution should have been almost impossible.

  Almost.

  The funny thing was… they had to be evolving. He had seen it with his own eyes. He had watched a battle between a Charizard and a Gyarados.

  That wasn’t their base form.

  Charizard hatched as a Charmaer evolved into Charmeleon, and finally became Charizard.

  Simirly, while he didn’t fully remember Gyarados’s evolution line, he could swear it didn’t just grow straight into its final form.

  Unless… uhat’s how it worked in this world.

  Maybe in this version of Pokémon, they simply grew up like any ical creature. That was the only reasonable expnation he could think of. It would also expin why he hadn’t entered any students with Pokémon that could naturally grow to massive sizes.

  'It’s a pity' , Magnus thought.

  If evolution worked here, Lee’s Rockruff might have already evolved into a Lyroc or one of its other forms.

  In any case, it would have been far more formidable than the helpless puppy currently staring at him.

  The same went for the twins’ Eevees.

  In fact, Eevee had one of the most dynamic evolution lines in the anime. By now, these two might have evolved into something—maybe Freon… or perhaps Umbreon, givewins’ pyful nature and night mischief.

  'Was there hope?' Magnus wondered. Could there be a ce that all these aspects of the inal Pokémon world were still there, just waiting to be awakened? Waiting for someoer them?

  Better yet—could he be the oo do it?

  He had do fyarados… he was sure of it. He could swear he was the one who had forced the serpent to use Ice Beam.

  And if Gyarados had that ability within it… why not the rest?

  Magnus’s heart pounded wildly at the thought of all the untapped potential in this world.

  'If fate is kind, I will make a name for myself here' , he thought.

  Then, after a moment, he residered.

  Screw fate.

  With or without it, he was going to make something out of this world he had stumbled—no, blown—himself into.

  "That must be the snack trolley," Lee said, breaking into his thoughts.

  Sure enough, the partment door creaked open, revealing a dy standing behind a cart overflowing with wizard snacks.

  “Anything for you, dear?” the dy asked with an easy smile.

  “Well, we’ve got no Galleons, but tell you what—I’ll trade one of Molly’s cookies for some of those chocote frogs,” Fred said so early that someone might have thought he was serious.

  “Yeah… make it two,” Gee added.

  The dy didn’t even bother responding. She must have had enough run-ins with the twins over the past two years at Hogwarts.

  "You two never ge, do you?" she said, clearly unfazed by their antics.

  Turning to Lee and Magnus, she asked, "Anything for you two?"

  “I’ll have some Every Fvor Beans,” Lee said, handing her a few Sickles.

  Magnus had expected this. Most of his money was tucked away in his trunk, but he had set aside two Galleons specifically for this.

  “We’ll have a bit of everything you’ve got,” he said, handihe gold s.

  He was the closest to the trolley, but even after all the time he had spent in Diagon Alley, he was still unfamiliar with wizarding snacks.

  "You guys should help me pick—I swear, I still know nothing about this stuff."

  The twins exged a look, hesitant—like they wao say something but decided against it in front of the dy.

  Within seds, their seats were piled high with an assortment of treats.

  When the dy finally wheeled away, the three of them turo Magnus.

  “You shouldn’t have, mate,” Gee said, eyes wide as he surveyed the ridiculous amount of snacks .

  “This is overkill, Magnus. We’ll hit Hogwarts before we’re even halfway through this lot,” Fred added.

  Magnus just smiled. “That’s exactly the pn. I hear you two sneak almost anything into Hogwarts.”

  The twins looked surprised for a sed before breaking into identical, almost childlike grins.

  “Say no more—our sneaky skills are at your service,” Fred said, tipping an imaginary hat and giving a mock bow.

  “Looks like our reputation precedes us,” Gee added. “You won’t regret yalleons, Mr. Magnus Magnus.” He did a mock curtsy, grinning.

  The four of them dove into the snacks.

  “Speaking of Galleons,” Lee said through a mouthful of Chocote Frog, “I don’t know about you guys, but I saved my three and added four more. The league will start month, you know.”

  Magnus, who had been unraveling a Mana sticker, looked up excitedly, but then a sed ter, that excitement watered down.

  "Too bad we will be in school. We might have forced those lucky brothers to ge their name."

  He had no doubt that had he been able to attend these battles, he would have made a good fortune.

  He was still homeless, and now that he had some possessions, the streets were no longer an option. He would o be prepared by the time the term ended.

  "Well, we still do it... they have an owl service, don't they?" Gee said, equally between mouthfuls.

  Magnus felt his hopes skyrocket.

  "They do?"

  This topic seemed to set aside their hunger for snacks.

  "Well, all betting merts have an owl service," Fred answered. "Gee and I have ten Galleons too."

  Both Lee and Magnus looked surprised. It was not like the twins worked, and Magnus highly doubted their parents could spare them such kind of money.

  But then again, the twins were hardly helpless—they had their own means.

  "But how does that even work?" Magnus wondered.

  "It works just like it did when you pced your bet in the Griffin match," Lee expined. "The only difference is that you pce your first-rou a day before."

  "Yeah, so that means you have to write a request letter to them two days before that to be on the safe side," Gee interjected.

  "Iter, you tell them the total amount you wish to stake. After they get your request letter, they send you a bnk ticket like the ohey gave you when you pyed on the Griffins."

  "It's irely bnk, though, is it?" Fred pointed out. "It always has a 'won' total of the amount you mentioned earlier."

  "How... but you haven't given them any Galleo?" Magnus queried.

  "But you will—you pay it to the owl that brings your ticket." Gee smiled knowingly.

  "But what if you refuse to pay the owl and still retaiicket? you still cash it in?"

  The twins' evil grins widened.

  "Trust me, you don't want to do that. Those owls arely a bunch of pushovers," Lee answered.

  "Yeah, they aren't. Mundungu would know. Heard he had to be admitted at St. Mungo's after they were doh his face," Fred’s mischievous grin grew even bigger.

  " you imagihe idiot requested a thousand Galleon stake, but whe the ticket, he tried to jinx the owl with a fundus Charm."

  The four friends burst out ughing at the absurdity of that.

  Magnus could not recall the st time he had ughed this hard... he was really trying to stop, if only to ask why it didn't work.

  But he couldn't.

  The ughter just kept hitting in waves. He tried to press his lips shut, but the burst just seemed to break through that too, and it only made the other three ugh even more.

  Eventually, he couldn't help it and slipped off his seat onto the floor of the partment, still rolling with ughter.

  Even worse was the fact that in his mind, he had already formed the picture of this altercatioween Mundungu and the owl.

  Somehow, it was exactly the kind of thing he would expect Mundungu to do.

  "Why... why did it not work? I mean, it work, 't it?"

  Gee, eared to have mastered himself, looked at him on the floor and couldn't help bursting inthter.

  "I bet those owls have protective charms... plus Dungs isly a Dumbledore, is he?"

  "And even if it worked, I don't think you could cim it without staking at least the first round, and the only way to do that is to get the quill to work," Lee affirmed.

  Magnus k was true. He recalled what the clerk had said to him:

  "Don't bother writing what you haven't won."

  "Mate, I think you should ge into your school robes while we put our sneaky skill into py. We are almost there," Fred said as he, Gee, and Lee began to gather the remaining snacks.

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